Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the SouthernConeWorld Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean 2011Included Articles

IntroductionMilitary Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern ConeBy David Pion-Berlin

Although the dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone may seem like a distant memory they are noteasily forgotten especially by those who suffered under them The widespread and systematic violationsof human rights at the hands of state security forces are a matter of public record Many lives weredestroyed and polities and societies fundamentally altered Since then armed insurgents havedisappeared from the scene and Marxist parties garner few votes Trade unions that were dismantled oroutlawed by the dictatorships have never fully recovered Authoritarian regimes left their imprint on thedemocratic systems that replaced them but the carryover is not uniformly negative those de factoregimes also generated a fierce determination in civil and political society to move forward The harshrepression of the past unleashed organized efforts to bring perpetrators to justice

The authoritarian regimes of the 1960s and 1970s were military in nature Although the exact relationshipbetween the military institution and its regime component differed from country to country it is anundisputed fact that the military itself constituted the key pillar of support for these governments Thecentrality of the military differentiates these authoritarian regimes from other types such as single-partyregimes (Mexico 1928ndash2000) sultanistic or personalistic regimes (Haiti 1957ndash1986) and civilian-authoritarian regimes (Egypt 1980ndash2011)

Scholarship on authoritarian rule has found that the military type tends to have the shortest duration andthat the single-party type tends to be the most durable The average lifespan of a military regime is aboutnine years as compared to twenty-six years for a single-party regime and in the middle fifteen years fora sultanistic regime The differences throw light on the nature of the military institution Those who governare confronted with the contentiousness of politics which often creates divisions between members of theruling coalition Political parties can handle those divisions through cooptation Personal dictators forge avery narrow but loyal coterie of followers whose lifestyles indeed lives depend on allegiance to theleader By contrast the military is extremely reluctant to remain in office if divisions threaten to split theinstitution wide open Nothing is more valuable to it than unity When unity is severely threatened officersalways have another option to return to the barracks to resume their principal mission national defenseThat is why by the early 1980s internal splits often led to the demise of military authoritarian regimes inthe Southern Cone

The relatively shorter duration of military regimes should not however obscure the fact that for the victimsof military-orchestrated state terror the end of de facto rule could not have come a moment too soon Forthe multitudes deprived of freedom civil liberties and political rights and those in detention under themost atrocious conditions subjected routinely to torture and without any rights of due process a weekcould seem like a year and a year a lifetime For families who did not know the whereabouts of their lovedones officially classified as disappeared the uncertainty took a heavy psychological toll The hauntingmemories of those years under dictatorship still linger for many survivors Fortunately some justice has

been meted out to the perpetrators of human rights crimes but many more have remained free

The history of military dictatorships raises certain central questions Why did militaries seize power Whatkinds of dictatorships did they set up How were they structured how did they rule and more specificallyhow did they treat their oppositions Why and how did they leave office And how have reborndemocracies dealt with the legacies of military rule

The Origins of Military Dictatorship

Militaries are often driven to intervene in politics by what they perceive as threats around them Thegenerals who seized power in Brazil and the Southern Cone were preoccupied with social political andideological threats of one kind or another This was the Cold War era when the United States was lockedin a global struggle for domination with the Soviet Union Not surprisingly the fight against leftistmovements was a huge motivator Washington wishing to enlist these regimes as allies against the SovietUnion actively coaxed these militaries into seizing power and thereafter propped them up so as toestablish separate theaters of operation within the larger war between East and West

But the war analogy used repeatedly by the militaries themselves to justify their intervention and brand ofgovernance was a bit of a stretch The bulk of those subjected to repression and abuse were unarmed ifnot politically uninvolved Very few confrontations between the armed units of the state and those of theopposition took place on the battlefield Indeed many tens of thousands who were victims of what hasbecome known as the dirty wars had no affiliations with any armed dangerous or illegal organizationswhatever The exceptions to this rule were found in Argentina and Uruguay in which guerrillaorganizations such as the Ejeacutercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP Peoples Revolutionary Army) theMontoneros and the Tupamaros were active In Chile the far-left party called the Movimiento de IzquierdaRevolucionaria (MIR Revolutionary Left Movement) did resort to violent tactics though it clearly did notoperate in military formation Yet none of these groups was any match for the armed forces which easilyand swiftly dismantled them

Hence in the case of each country it is important to distinguish the militarys post hoc rationalizations forthe coup deacutetat from the more complex underlying causes Yes militaries felt threatened but they werealso strategic waiting for the right opportunity to intervene They knew full well that a prematureintervention could backfire resulting in irreparable harm to their profession Officers wanted to be sure thata sizable block of citizens was behind the idea of regime change For this to occur there had to be asubstantial breakdown in the democratic order well before the militarys final assault so that citizens wouldseriously question the legitimacy of the government its institutions and its rules of the game

This process of deterioration would occur in stages with the accumulation of unresolved problems andunfulfilled demands As the gap between demands and performance widened social and political actorswould grow increasingly frustrated and the system polarized Coalitions that sustained those in powerunraveled while new ones converged around illegal violent solutions Those new elements were disloyalin that they were willing to resort to whatever means necessary to further their interests In such a state ofsocietal decay a military overthrow of a constitutional government did not seem terribly out of place andoften met with acceptance from a significant fraction of the civilian population

The Economic DimensionThe democratic breakdown leading to the crisis of military intervention had its economic social andpolitical dimensions An important tradition of scholarship traces this political descent to deep structuralproblems in the economy Simply put the economic solutions that many Latin American states had longpinned their hopes on ran their course they could no longer generate growth and employment The mostprevalent model import substitution industrialization (ISI) predicated economic success on the decreasingreliance of developing states on wealthy states and international markets Instead they would developlines of production at home that could substitute for previously imported goods Tariff barriers would beerected to protect nascent local industries from outside competition The hope was that ISI would result innumerous higher-paying manufacturing jobs for the armies of the unemployed and set these countries onthe path toward development It worked for a while until inefficient local industrialists ran up against thelimits of the domestic market and could not compete internationally The result was economic stagnationand wage price spirals leading to higher inflation

When ISI flourished populist governments were able to count on a sufficiently broad coalition of support tosustain them and the democratic order local industrialists and other domestic capitalists small businesswage earners professionals and civil servants When ISI exhausted itself that coalition disintegrated aswage earners were pitted against owners and working class against middle and upper classes A newnarrower coalition emerged comprising domestic and international capitalists bankers the middle andupper classes and in the end the armed forces The members of this coalition were convinced that a neweconomic model was needed one that would suppress wage-earner demands and thereby create analluring market for competitive foreign firms The only way to impose such a plan in their view wasthrough authoritarian means

It is tempting to see this economically driven process as an inexorable march toward dictatorship Yetthere was nothing inevitable about it Decisions could have been made along the way to avert disaster butwere not The laws of economics may not be terribly elastic but politics is and policy makers in otherparts of the globe were able to make adjustments to avert military takeovers Moreover there is no one-size-fits-all explanation for the rise of dictatorship in fact Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina eachexperienced its own version of economic decline and democratic breakdown

BrazilBrazils lead-up to the military takeover in 1964 in many ways set the example for some of its SouthernCone neighbors Economically ISI had reached the exhaustion phase Under President Joatildeo Goulart(1961ndash1964) Brazil ran serious balance-of-payments problems and the country hemorrhaged some twobillion dollars in the first two months of 1964 alone In the face of deteriorating real wages labor becamemore militant and organized greater strike activity between 1961 and 1964 as occurred later in Uruguayand Argentina The middle class resented union pressure believing it was pushing up costs andworsening inflation Military officials too began to identify labor with economic strife and were especiallycritical of the trade unions which they maintained were unduly influenced by the Communist Party

When it comes to military intervention it takes two to tango The Brazilian military had intervened on anumber of occasions but had been prompted to do so by civilians Part of the justification stemmed fromthe constitution at the time which authorized the military to perform three functions guarantee the normalfunctioning of the three branches of government maintain law and order and obey the executive withinthe limits of the law These provisions gave politicians a number of openings to enlist the armed forces

assistance and gave the armed forces the justification to comply

Prior to 1964 politicians grievances were with specific presidents and their policies they believed that withnew leadership problems could be resolved within the democratic constitutional framework The militarywould intervene on their behalf set the stage for new elections and then quickly return to the barracks By1964 the ground had shifted and a new view emerged entailing doubts about the efficacy of the politicalsystem itself The sentiment was that the numerous political parties in congress would not or could notcoalesce to formulate policies to meet the growing needs of a burgeoning society and neither would thecongress cooperate with the executive branch Overlaying this was an ideological polarization with therhetoric on the right and left becoming more acerbic and overheated The political system had become toofragmented and Brazil was no longer governable under the aegis of the existing democratic polity If thiswere true it would justify a military-authoritarian regime of a different nature one prepared to stay inpower for the long haul to enact far-reaching reforms

The militarys own views of its political role had changed With the development of Brazils version of theNational Security Doctrine cultivated within the Superior War College (Escola Superior de Guerra ESG)the armed forces were convinced that security and development were inseparable If the nation was tomodernize and rid itself of subversion it could do so only through careful long-term planning within acentralized system of power A pluralistic system with feuding parties that were vulnerable to harmfulinfluences was no longer functional It would take a strong centralized authoritarian state to accomplishthose goals That being said the military was not prepared to intervene until public opinion was behind itMilitary activists would have to win over the bulk of officers who were not coup-minded To do so theywanted to avoid bloodshed and division and the only way to do that was to show that they had the publicon their side

The sitting president made the militarys job easier Goulart committed a number of strategic blunders thatled many inside and outside the armed forces to question his credentials let alone his commitment to theconstitution He demanded that congress change the constitution which he described as obsolete andwhen it refused to do so he threatened to close it down and hold a constituent assembly He held massrallies at which he railed against the power holders in Brazilian society exhorting his followers withrevolutionary rhetoric But the straw that broke the camels back was his pardon of mutinous sailors whowere petitioning for better living conditions Goularts failure to stand firm against the sailors representedfor the military an intolerable break in the chain of command A few days later on March 31 1964 theyremoved him from office and the twenty-one-year era of authoritarian rule commenced

UruguayUruguay had long been considered one of the two most stable democracies in Latin America with a strongtwo-party system The Blanco and Colorado parties definitely had their differences but by the end of thenineteenth century they had devised a system called co-participation to keep the peace and share thespoils of power The system was revised over the decades but in one form or another worked remarkablywell so long as the economic system that relied heavily on agricultural export revenues along with state-led investment generated enough resources to please contending parties Unfortunately Uruguays goldeneconomic years came to an end in the mid-1950s as export revenues declined and ISI reached its limitswith domestic industry unable to expand further In fact Uruguay suffered one of the longest and steadiestperiods of economic deterioration of any country at the time

Bold solutions were required to resolve the economic problems but these were not forthcomingThe fractured political system stood in the way Uruguays unique double simultaneous votingsystem allowed separate factions within each party to run their own list of candidates The votetallies for each faction were combined to determine the partys total and thus which party wouldprevail This system meant two things First parties tolerated a wide range of ideological currentswithin them Second a candidate from a faction (sublema) within either party was likely to win thepresidency with just a small plurality of the national vote For example between 1958 and 1971 nocandidate winning the presidency came to office with more than 27 percent of the vote With a poormandate and a minority of seats within the parliament presidents were reluctant to propose decisivereform Moreover within each party there was always some sublema that disagreed with the president andprepared to join others to block legislation they did not want The president had to contend not only withthe opposing party but with feuding elements within his own This two-layer problemmdashintra- and interpartyfeudingmdashresulted in immobilization in the face of continued economic stagnation

The economic decline set off greater confrontation between workers and owners who were now competingfor slices of a smaller economic pie a similar situation would occur in Argentina Whereas historicallyUruguays labor force had been more moderate in its politics and tactics than Argentinas owing to smallerfactories and an impressive welfare state its strike activity increased significantly through the 1960s Thegovernment went to great lengths to crack down on these workers even drafting striking bank and stateemployees into the armed services

And like its southern neighbor Uruguay also confronted the reality of an urban-based guerrilla movementThe Tupamaros founded in 1963 came to prominence in 1970 with the assassination of Daniel Mitrionea retired US police officer who had allegedly helped train the Uruguayans in the use of torture Wellbefore the 1973 coup armed clashes were occurring on a regular basis between the guerrillas and statesecurity forces President Jorge Pacheco (in office 1968ndash1971) stiffened his resolve to liquidate theTupamaros and in the fall of 1971 announced he would turn the antiguerrilla operation over entirely to hisarmed forces He governed under the Prompt Security Measures (Medidas Prontas de Seguridad MPS)which enabled him to rule by emergency decree This led to the erosion of many democratic safeguardsincluding the right of habeas corpus Pachecos successor President Juan Mariacutea Bordaberry(1971ndash1973) made the MPS permanent with the introduction of new repressive security legislation in1972 In that same year the military officially launched its campaign against the Tupamaros and withinfour months they had completely vanquished the guerrillas

Thus the elements of dictatorship were falling into place under democratic rule well before the coup ofJune 27 1973 Uruguays brand of authoritarianism might be referred to as a creeping dictatorshipAccording to Charles Gillespie (1991) a combination of ideological polarization labor strife escalatingviolence and military role expansion contributed to the slow rise of authoritarian rule in Uruguay Thearmed forces under the influence of the National Security Doctrine justified their climb to powermdashevenafter the defeat of the Tupamarosmdashas essential to begin the next phase of the antisubversive struggle tofoster development in order to eliminate the underlying socioeconomic causes of radicalism Politiciansmeanwhile shared a large portion of the blame as they not only withdrew support for PresidentBordaberry in the face of military challenges but actually courted colonels and generals who theymistakenly believed might emulate the Peruvians in a progressive-styled coup With these kinds ofmaneuvers it was just a matter of time before many would question the viability of the democratic orderand the militarys seizure of power took no one by surprise

ChileThe Chilean military coup of September 11 1973 by contrast was largely unexpected The armed forcesstruck suddenly and violently that morning bombing La Moneda (the presidential palace) capturing orkilling members of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity or UP) government and leading President SalvadorAllende to take his own life The Chilean armed forces were known as constitutionalists willing to remainsubordinate to the elected government notwithstanding political and ideological disagreements they mayhave had with those in office The Chilean military also had a habit of staying aloof from the political sceneso that few Chilean civilians knew much about them There was much less intermingling between politicalparty operators and soldiers there than in Uruguay Anticommunist sentiments ran strong in the militarybut constitutional commanders kept the lid on displeasure over the Marxist government Not until the failedcoup attempt of June 29 1973 did suspicions arise Still Allendes confidence in his constitutionalistofficers remained solid so much so that on August 23 just nineteen days before the coup he replacedarmy commander General Carlos Prats with none other than Augusto Pinochet the future Chilean dictator

Allende pursued a socialist agenda but did so within the framework of the constitution Lacking theassistance of a largely hostile congress the president could implement some of his agenda via executiveaction He generated consumer demand and redistributed income via government spending on housingeducation and health and expropriation of industries and banks The economy responded favorably thefirst year but by the second excessive demand and reductions in investment and production pushedinflation into triple digits The economic problems were compounded by black markets hoarding andsabotage of infrastructure by right-wing groups The government was running out of cash its reserveswere depleted and the congress would not pass tax increases In response Allende resorted to printingmoney which of course made inflation worse

But the breakdown of Chilean democracy cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of economic policy AsArturo Valenzuela puts it the breakdown must be understood as the failure to structure a viable center ina highly polarized society with strong centrifugal tendencies (1978 p 59) Moderates from the UP and theChristian Democratic Party (CD) could not build a centrist coalition around support of continued economicreforms using lawful democratic means Elements on the far right and left kept tugging at the centermaking compromise impossible Disloyal parties on the right supported a return to the economic statusquo ante and were prepared to use violence to achieve it Disloyal parties on the left wanted a clean breakwith the capitalist system and were willing to go beyond democratic rules to get it Progressives within theCD were being marginalized and they split off to form other parties CD moderates believed Allendesnationalization of property went too far and were alarmed at the land seizures spurred on by the radicalleft Conservative forces finally took control of the CD refusing to negotiate in good faith with AllendeMeanwhile far-left elements within Allendes coalition beat back efforts to negotiate with the other side andkept testing the limits with illegal land seizures and other confrontational tactics The result was extremepolarization

All of this was made worse by US covert intervention At the direction of President Richard Nixon andNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a secret interagency committee orchestrated a multiprongedoperation aimed at fomenting a coup undermining the economy manipulating the media and funnelingmoney to the opposition Despite Kissingers contention that the US-led coup plotting ended in the fall of1970 there is enough evidence to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency persisted in stimulatinginterest in a coup deacutetat among right-wing Chilean officers well into 1973 Meanwhile the CIA planted

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

The Economic DimensionThe democratic breakdown leading to the crisis of military intervention had its economic social andpolitical dimensions An important tradition of scholarship traces this political descent to deep structuralproblems in the economy Simply put the economic solutions that many Latin American states had longpinned their hopes on ran their course they could no longer generate growth and employment The mostprevalent model import substitution industrialization (ISI) predicated economic success on the decreasingreliance of developing states on wealthy states and international markets Instead they would developlines of production at home that could substitute for previously imported goods Tariff barriers would beerected to protect nascent local industries from outside competition The hope was that ISI would result innumerous higher-paying manufacturing jobs for the armies of the unemployed and set these countries onthe path toward development It worked for a while until inefficient local industrialists ran up against thelimits of the domestic market and could not compete internationally The result was economic stagnationand wage price spirals leading to higher inflation

When ISI flourished populist governments were able to count on a sufficiently broad coalition of support tosustain them and the democratic order local industrialists and other domestic capitalists small businesswage earners professionals and civil servants When ISI exhausted itself that coalition disintegrated aswage earners were pitted against owners and working class against middle and upper classes A newnarrower coalition emerged comprising domestic and international capitalists bankers the middle andupper classes and in the end the armed forces The members of this coalition were convinced that a neweconomic model was needed one that would suppress wage-earner demands and thereby create analluring market for competitive foreign firms The only way to impose such a plan in their view wasthrough authoritarian means

It is tempting to see this economically driven process as an inexorable march toward dictatorship Yetthere was nothing inevitable about it Decisions could have been made along the way to avert disaster butwere not The laws of economics may not be terribly elastic but politics is and policy makers in otherparts of the globe were able to make adjustments to avert military takeovers Moreover there is no one-size-fits-all explanation for the rise of dictatorship in fact Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina eachexperienced its own version of economic decline and democratic breakdown

BrazilBrazils lead-up to the military takeover in 1964 in many ways set the example for some of its SouthernCone neighbors Economically ISI had reached the exhaustion phase Under President Joatildeo Goulart(1961ndash1964) Brazil ran serious balance-of-payments problems and the country hemorrhaged some twobillion dollars in the first two months of 1964 alone In the face of deteriorating real wages labor becamemore militant and organized greater strike activity between 1961 and 1964 as occurred later in Uruguayand Argentina The middle class resented union pressure believing it was pushing up costs andworsening inflation Military officials too began to identify labor with economic strife and were especiallycritical of the trade unions which they maintained were unduly influenced by the Communist Party

When it comes to military intervention it takes two to tango The Brazilian military had intervened on anumber of occasions but had been prompted to do so by civilians Part of the justification stemmed fromthe constitution at the time which authorized the military to perform three functions guarantee the normalfunctioning of the three branches of government maintain law and order and obey the executive withinthe limits of the law These provisions gave politicians a number of openings to enlist the armed forces

assistance and gave the armed forces the justification to comply

Prior to 1964 politicians grievances were with specific presidents and their policies they believed that withnew leadership problems could be resolved within the democratic constitutional framework The militarywould intervene on their behalf set the stage for new elections and then quickly return to the barracks By1964 the ground had shifted and a new view emerged entailing doubts about the efficacy of the politicalsystem itself The sentiment was that the numerous political parties in congress would not or could notcoalesce to formulate policies to meet the growing needs of a burgeoning society and neither would thecongress cooperate with the executive branch Overlaying this was an ideological polarization with therhetoric on the right and left becoming more acerbic and overheated The political system had become toofragmented and Brazil was no longer governable under the aegis of the existing democratic polity If thiswere true it would justify a military-authoritarian regime of a different nature one prepared to stay inpower for the long haul to enact far-reaching reforms

The militarys own views of its political role had changed With the development of Brazils version of theNational Security Doctrine cultivated within the Superior War College (Escola Superior de Guerra ESG)the armed forces were convinced that security and development were inseparable If the nation was tomodernize and rid itself of subversion it could do so only through careful long-term planning within acentralized system of power A pluralistic system with feuding parties that were vulnerable to harmfulinfluences was no longer functional It would take a strong centralized authoritarian state to accomplishthose goals That being said the military was not prepared to intervene until public opinion was behind itMilitary activists would have to win over the bulk of officers who were not coup-minded To do so theywanted to avoid bloodshed and division and the only way to do that was to show that they had the publicon their side

The sitting president made the militarys job easier Goulart committed a number of strategic blunders thatled many inside and outside the armed forces to question his credentials let alone his commitment to theconstitution He demanded that congress change the constitution which he described as obsolete andwhen it refused to do so he threatened to close it down and hold a constituent assembly He held massrallies at which he railed against the power holders in Brazilian society exhorting his followers withrevolutionary rhetoric But the straw that broke the camels back was his pardon of mutinous sailors whowere petitioning for better living conditions Goularts failure to stand firm against the sailors representedfor the military an intolerable break in the chain of command A few days later on March 31 1964 theyremoved him from office and the twenty-one-year era of authoritarian rule commenced

UruguayUruguay had long been considered one of the two most stable democracies in Latin America with a strongtwo-party system The Blanco and Colorado parties definitely had their differences but by the end of thenineteenth century they had devised a system called co-participation to keep the peace and share thespoils of power The system was revised over the decades but in one form or another worked remarkablywell so long as the economic system that relied heavily on agricultural export revenues along with state-led investment generated enough resources to please contending parties Unfortunately Uruguays goldeneconomic years came to an end in the mid-1950s as export revenues declined and ISI reached its limitswith domestic industry unable to expand further In fact Uruguay suffered one of the longest and steadiestperiods of economic deterioration of any country at the time

Bold solutions were required to resolve the economic problems but these were not forthcomingThe fractured political system stood in the way Uruguays unique double simultaneous votingsystem allowed separate factions within each party to run their own list of candidates The votetallies for each faction were combined to determine the partys total and thus which party wouldprevail This system meant two things First parties tolerated a wide range of ideological currentswithin them Second a candidate from a faction (sublema) within either party was likely to win thepresidency with just a small plurality of the national vote For example between 1958 and 1971 nocandidate winning the presidency came to office with more than 27 percent of the vote With a poormandate and a minority of seats within the parliament presidents were reluctant to propose decisivereform Moreover within each party there was always some sublema that disagreed with the president andprepared to join others to block legislation they did not want The president had to contend not only withthe opposing party but with feuding elements within his own This two-layer problemmdashintra- and interpartyfeudingmdashresulted in immobilization in the face of continued economic stagnation

The economic decline set off greater confrontation between workers and owners who were now competingfor slices of a smaller economic pie a similar situation would occur in Argentina Whereas historicallyUruguays labor force had been more moderate in its politics and tactics than Argentinas owing to smallerfactories and an impressive welfare state its strike activity increased significantly through the 1960s Thegovernment went to great lengths to crack down on these workers even drafting striking bank and stateemployees into the armed services

And like its southern neighbor Uruguay also confronted the reality of an urban-based guerrilla movementThe Tupamaros founded in 1963 came to prominence in 1970 with the assassination of Daniel Mitrionea retired US police officer who had allegedly helped train the Uruguayans in the use of torture Wellbefore the 1973 coup armed clashes were occurring on a regular basis between the guerrillas and statesecurity forces President Jorge Pacheco (in office 1968ndash1971) stiffened his resolve to liquidate theTupamaros and in the fall of 1971 announced he would turn the antiguerrilla operation over entirely to hisarmed forces He governed under the Prompt Security Measures (Medidas Prontas de Seguridad MPS)which enabled him to rule by emergency decree This led to the erosion of many democratic safeguardsincluding the right of habeas corpus Pachecos successor President Juan Mariacutea Bordaberry(1971ndash1973) made the MPS permanent with the introduction of new repressive security legislation in1972 In that same year the military officially launched its campaign against the Tupamaros and withinfour months they had completely vanquished the guerrillas

Thus the elements of dictatorship were falling into place under democratic rule well before the coup ofJune 27 1973 Uruguays brand of authoritarianism might be referred to as a creeping dictatorshipAccording to Charles Gillespie (1991) a combination of ideological polarization labor strife escalatingviolence and military role expansion contributed to the slow rise of authoritarian rule in Uruguay Thearmed forces under the influence of the National Security Doctrine justified their climb to powermdashevenafter the defeat of the Tupamarosmdashas essential to begin the next phase of the antisubversive struggle tofoster development in order to eliminate the underlying socioeconomic causes of radicalism Politiciansmeanwhile shared a large portion of the blame as they not only withdrew support for PresidentBordaberry in the face of military challenges but actually courted colonels and generals who theymistakenly believed might emulate the Peruvians in a progressive-styled coup With these kinds ofmaneuvers it was just a matter of time before many would question the viability of the democratic orderand the militarys seizure of power took no one by surprise

ChileThe Chilean military coup of September 11 1973 by contrast was largely unexpected The armed forcesstruck suddenly and violently that morning bombing La Moneda (the presidential palace) capturing orkilling members of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity or UP) government and leading President SalvadorAllende to take his own life The Chilean armed forces were known as constitutionalists willing to remainsubordinate to the elected government notwithstanding political and ideological disagreements they mayhave had with those in office The Chilean military also had a habit of staying aloof from the political sceneso that few Chilean civilians knew much about them There was much less intermingling between politicalparty operators and soldiers there than in Uruguay Anticommunist sentiments ran strong in the militarybut constitutional commanders kept the lid on displeasure over the Marxist government Not until the failedcoup attempt of June 29 1973 did suspicions arise Still Allendes confidence in his constitutionalistofficers remained solid so much so that on August 23 just nineteen days before the coup he replacedarmy commander General Carlos Prats with none other than Augusto Pinochet the future Chilean dictator

Allende pursued a socialist agenda but did so within the framework of the constitution Lacking theassistance of a largely hostile congress the president could implement some of his agenda via executiveaction He generated consumer demand and redistributed income via government spending on housingeducation and health and expropriation of industries and banks The economy responded favorably thefirst year but by the second excessive demand and reductions in investment and production pushedinflation into triple digits The economic problems were compounded by black markets hoarding andsabotage of infrastructure by right-wing groups The government was running out of cash its reserveswere depleted and the congress would not pass tax increases In response Allende resorted to printingmoney which of course made inflation worse

But the breakdown of Chilean democracy cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of economic policy AsArturo Valenzuela puts it the breakdown must be understood as the failure to structure a viable center ina highly polarized society with strong centrifugal tendencies (1978 p 59) Moderates from the UP and theChristian Democratic Party (CD) could not build a centrist coalition around support of continued economicreforms using lawful democratic means Elements on the far right and left kept tugging at the centermaking compromise impossible Disloyal parties on the right supported a return to the economic statusquo ante and were prepared to use violence to achieve it Disloyal parties on the left wanted a clean breakwith the capitalist system and were willing to go beyond democratic rules to get it Progressives within theCD were being marginalized and they split off to form other parties CD moderates believed Allendesnationalization of property went too far and were alarmed at the land seizures spurred on by the radicalleft Conservative forces finally took control of the CD refusing to negotiate in good faith with AllendeMeanwhile far-left elements within Allendes coalition beat back efforts to negotiate with the other side andkept testing the limits with illegal land seizures and other confrontational tactics The result was extremepolarization

All of this was made worse by US covert intervention At the direction of President Richard Nixon andNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a secret interagency committee orchestrated a multiprongedoperation aimed at fomenting a coup undermining the economy manipulating the media and funnelingmoney to the opposition Despite Kissingers contention that the US-led coup plotting ended in the fall of1970 there is enough evidence to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency persisted in stimulatinginterest in a coup deacutetat among right-wing Chilean officers well into 1973 Meanwhile the CIA planted

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

assistance and gave the armed forces the justification to comply

Prior to 1964 politicians grievances were with specific presidents and their policies they believed that withnew leadership problems could be resolved within the democratic constitutional framework The militarywould intervene on their behalf set the stage for new elections and then quickly return to the barracks By1964 the ground had shifted and a new view emerged entailing doubts about the efficacy of the politicalsystem itself The sentiment was that the numerous political parties in congress would not or could notcoalesce to formulate policies to meet the growing needs of a burgeoning society and neither would thecongress cooperate with the executive branch Overlaying this was an ideological polarization with therhetoric on the right and left becoming more acerbic and overheated The political system had become toofragmented and Brazil was no longer governable under the aegis of the existing democratic polity If thiswere true it would justify a military-authoritarian regime of a different nature one prepared to stay inpower for the long haul to enact far-reaching reforms

The militarys own views of its political role had changed With the development of Brazils version of theNational Security Doctrine cultivated within the Superior War College (Escola Superior de Guerra ESG)the armed forces were convinced that security and development were inseparable If the nation was tomodernize and rid itself of subversion it could do so only through careful long-term planning within acentralized system of power A pluralistic system with feuding parties that were vulnerable to harmfulinfluences was no longer functional It would take a strong centralized authoritarian state to accomplishthose goals That being said the military was not prepared to intervene until public opinion was behind itMilitary activists would have to win over the bulk of officers who were not coup-minded To do so theywanted to avoid bloodshed and division and the only way to do that was to show that they had the publicon their side

The sitting president made the militarys job easier Goulart committed a number of strategic blunders thatled many inside and outside the armed forces to question his credentials let alone his commitment to theconstitution He demanded that congress change the constitution which he described as obsolete andwhen it refused to do so he threatened to close it down and hold a constituent assembly He held massrallies at which he railed against the power holders in Brazilian society exhorting his followers withrevolutionary rhetoric But the straw that broke the camels back was his pardon of mutinous sailors whowere petitioning for better living conditions Goularts failure to stand firm against the sailors representedfor the military an intolerable break in the chain of command A few days later on March 31 1964 theyremoved him from office and the twenty-one-year era of authoritarian rule commenced

UruguayUruguay had long been considered one of the two most stable democracies in Latin America with a strongtwo-party system The Blanco and Colorado parties definitely had their differences but by the end of thenineteenth century they had devised a system called co-participation to keep the peace and share thespoils of power The system was revised over the decades but in one form or another worked remarkablywell so long as the economic system that relied heavily on agricultural export revenues along with state-led investment generated enough resources to please contending parties Unfortunately Uruguays goldeneconomic years came to an end in the mid-1950s as export revenues declined and ISI reached its limitswith domestic industry unable to expand further In fact Uruguay suffered one of the longest and steadiestperiods of economic deterioration of any country at the time

Bold solutions were required to resolve the economic problems but these were not forthcomingThe fractured political system stood in the way Uruguays unique double simultaneous votingsystem allowed separate factions within each party to run their own list of candidates The votetallies for each faction were combined to determine the partys total and thus which party wouldprevail This system meant two things First parties tolerated a wide range of ideological currentswithin them Second a candidate from a faction (sublema) within either party was likely to win thepresidency with just a small plurality of the national vote For example between 1958 and 1971 nocandidate winning the presidency came to office with more than 27 percent of the vote With a poormandate and a minority of seats within the parliament presidents were reluctant to propose decisivereform Moreover within each party there was always some sublema that disagreed with the president andprepared to join others to block legislation they did not want The president had to contend not only withthe opposing party but with feuding elements within his own This two-layer problemmdashintra- and interpartyfeudingmdashresulted in immobilization in the face of continued economic stagnation

The economic decline set off greater confrontation between workers and owners who were now competingfor slices of a smaller economic pie a similar situation would occur in Argentina Whereas historicallyUruguays labor force had been more moderate in its politics and tactics than Argentinas owing to smallerfactories and an impressive welfare state its strike activity increased significantly through the 1960s Thegovernment went to great lengths to crack down on these workers even drafting striking bank and stateemployees into the armed services

And like its southern neighbor Uruguay also confronted the reality of an urban-based guerrilla movementThe Tupamaros founded in 1963 came to prominence in 1970 with the assassination of Daniel Mitrionea retired US police officer who had allegedly helped train the Uruguayans in the use of torture Wellbefore the 1973 coup armed clashes were occurring on a regular basis between the guerrillas and statesecurity forces President Jorge Pacheco (in office 1968ndash1971) stiffened his resolve to liquidate theTupamaros and in the fall of 1971 announced he would turn the antiguerrilla operation over entirely to hisarmed forces He governed under the Prompt Security Measures (Medidas Prontas de Seguridad MPS)which enabled him to rule by emergency decree This led to the erosion of many democratic safeguardsincluding the right of habeas corpus Pachecos successor President Juan Mariacutea Bordaberry(1971ndash1973) made the MPS permanent with the introduction of new repressive security legislation in1972 In that same year the military officially launched its campaign against the Tupamaros and withinfour months they had completely vanquished the guerrillas

Thus the elements of dictatorship were falling into place under democratic rule well before the coup ofJune 27 1973 Uruguays brand of authoritarianism might be referred to as a creeping dictatorshipAccording to Charles Gillespie (1991) a combination of ideological polarization labor strife escalatingviolence and military role expansion contributed to the slow rise of authoritarian rule in Uruguay Thearmed forces under the influence of the National Security Doctrine justified their climb to powermdashevenafter the defeat of the Tupamarosmdashas essential to begin the next phase of the antisubversive struggle tofoster development in order to eliminate the underlying socioeconomic causes of radicalism Politiciansmeanwhile shared a large portion of the blame as they not only withdrew support for PresidentBordaberry in the face of military challenges but actually courted colonels and generals who theymistakenly believed might emulate the Peruvians in a progressive-styled coup With these kinds ofmaneuvers it was just a matter of time before many would question the viability of the democratic orderand the militarys seizure of power took no one by surprise

ChileThe Chilean military coup of September 11 1973 by contrast was largely unexpected The armed forcesstruck suddenly and violently that morning bombing La Moneda (the presidential palace) capturing orkilling members of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity or UP) government and leading President SalvadorAllende to take his own life The Chilean armed forces were known as constitutionalists willing to remainsubordinate to the elected government notwithstanding political and ideological disagreements they mayhave had with those in office The Chilean military also had a habit of staying aloof from the political sceneso that few Chilean civilians knew much about them There was much less intermingling between politicalparty operators and soldiers there than in Uruguay Anticommunist sentiments ran strong in the militarybut constitutional commanders kept the lid on displeasure over the Marxist government Not until the failedcoup attempt of June 29 1973 did suspicions arise Still Allendes confidence in his constitutionalistofficers remained solid so much so that on August 23 just nineteen days before the coup he replacedarmy commander General Carlos Prats with none other than Augusto Pinochet the future Chilean dictator

Allende pursued a socialist agenda but did so within the framework of the constitution Lacking theassistance of a largely hostile congress the president could implement some of his agenda via executiveaction He generated consumer demand and redistributed income via government spending on housingeducation and health and expropriation of industries and banks The economy responded favorably thefirst year but by the second excessive demand and reductions in investment and production pushedinflation into triple digits The economic problems were compounded by black markets hoarding andsabotage of infrastructure by right-wing groups The government was running out of cash its reserveswere depleted and the congress would not pass tax increases In response Allende resorted to printingmoney which of course made inflation worse

But the breakdown of Chilean democracy cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of economic policy AsArturo Valenzuela puts it the breakdown must be understood as the failure to structure a viable center ina highly polarized society with strong centrifugal tendencies (1978 p 59) Moderates from the UP and theChristian Democratic Party (CD) could not build a centrist coalition around support of continued economicreforms using lawful democratic means Elements on the far right and left kept tugging at the centermaking compromise impossible Disloyal parties on the right supported a return to the economic statusquo ante and were prepared to use violence to achieve it Disloyal parties on the left wanted a clean breakwith the capitalist system and were willing to go beyond democratic rules to get it Progressives within theCD were being marginalized and they split off to form other parties CD moderates believed Allendesnationalization of property went too far and were alarmed at the land seizures spurred on by the radicalleft Conservative forces finally took control of the CD refusing to negotiate in good faith with AllendeMeanwhile far-left elements within Allendes coalition beat back efforts to negotiate with the other side andkept testing the limits with illegal land seizures and other confrontational tactics The result was extremepolarization

All of this was made worse by US covert intervention At the direction of President Richard Nixon andNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a secret interagency committee orchestrated a multiprongedoperation aimed at fomenting a coup undermining the economy manipulating the media and funnelingmoney to the opposition Despite Kissingers contention that the US-led coup plotting ended in the fall of1970 there is enough evidence to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency persisted in stimulatinginterest in a coup deacutetat among right-wing Chilean officers well into 1973 Meanwhile the CIA planted

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

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Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

Bold solutions were required to resolve the economic problems but these were not forthcomingThe fractured political system stood in the way Uruguays unique double simultaneous votingsystem allowed separate factions within each party to run their own list of candidates The votetallies for each faction were combined to determine the partys total and thus which party wouldprevail This system meant two things First parties tolerated a wide range of ideological currentswithin them Second a candidate from a faction (sublema) within either party was likely to win thepresidency with just a small plurality of the national vote For example between 1958 and 1971 nocandidate winning the presidency came to office with more than 27 percent of the vote With a poormandate and a minority of seats within the parliament presidents were reluctant to propose decisivereform Moreover within each party there was always some sublema that disagreed with the president andprepared to join others to block legislation they did not want The president had to contend not only withthe opposing party but with feuding elements within his own This two-layer problemmdashintra- and interpartyfeudingmdashresulted in immobilization in the face of continued economic stagnation

The economic decline set off greater confrontation between workers and owners who were now competingfor slices of a smaller economic pie a similar situation would occur in Argentina Whereas historicallyUruguays labor force had been more moderate in its politics and tactics than Argentinas owing to smallerfactories and an impressive welfare state its strike activity increased significantly through the 1960s Thegovernment went to great lengths to crack down on these workers even drafting striking bank and stateemployees into the armed services

And like its southern neighbor Uruguay also confronted the reality of an urban-based guerrilla movementThe Tupamaros founded in 1963 came to prominence in 1970 with the assassination of Daniel Mitrionea retired US police officer who had allegedly helped train the Uruguayans in the use of torture Wellbefore the 1973 coup armed clashes were occurring on a regular basis between the guerrillas and statesecurity forces President Jorge Pacheco (in office 1968ndash1971) stiffened his resolve to liquidate theTupamaros and in the fall of 1971 announced he would turn the antiguerrilla operation over entirely to hisarmed forces He governed under the Prompt Security Measures (Medidas Prontas de Seguridad MPS)which enabled him to rule by emergency decree This led to the erosion of many democratic safeguardsincluding the right of habeas corpus Pachecos successor President Juan Mariacutea Bordaberry(1971ndash1973) made the MPS permanent with the introduction of new repressive security legislation in1972 In that same year the military officially launched its campaign against the Tupamaros and withinfour months they had completely vanquished the guerrillas

Thus the elements of dictatorship were falling into place under democratic rule well before the coup ofJune 27 1973 Uruguays brand of authoritarianism might be referred to as a creeping dictatorshipAccording to Charles Gillespie (1991) a combination of ideological polarization labor strife escalatingviolence and military role expansion contributed to the slow rise of authoritarian rule in Uruguay Thearmed forces under the influence of the National Security Doctrine justified their climb to powermdashevenafter the defeat of the Tupamarosmdashas essential to begin the next phase of the antisubversive struggle tofoster development in order to eliminate the underlying socioeconomic causes of radicalism Politiciansmeanwhile shared a large portion of the blame as they not only withdrew support for PresidentBordaberry in the face of military challenges but actually courted colonels and generals who theymistakenly believed might emulate the Peruvians in a progressive-styled coup With these kinds ofmaneuvers it was just a matter of time before many would question the viability of the democratic orderand the militarys seizure of power took no one by surprise

ChileThe Chilean military coup of September 11 1973 by contrast was largely unexpected The armed forcesstruck suddenly and violently that morning bombing La Moneda (the presidential palace) capturing orkilling members of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity or UP) government and leading President SalvadorAllende to take his own life The Chilean armed forces were known as constitutionalists willing to remainsubordinate to the elected government notwithstanding political and ideological disagreements they mayhave had with those in office The Chilean military also had a habit of staying aloof from the political sceneso that few Chilean civilians knew much about them There was much less intermingling between politicalparty operators and soldiers there than in Uruguay Anticommunist sentiments ran strong in the militarybut constitutional commanders kept the lid on displeasure over the Marxist government Not until the failedcoup attempt of June 29 1973 did suspicions arise Still Allendes confidence in his constitutionalistofficers remained solid so much so that on August 23 just nineteen days before the coup he replacedarmy commander General Carlos Prats with none other than Augusto Pinochet the future Chilean dictator

Allende pursued a socialist agenda but did so within the framework of the constitution Lacking theassistance of a largely hostile congress the president could implement some of his agenda via executiveaction He generated consumer demand and redistributed income via government spending on housingeducation and health and expropriation of industries and banks The economy responded favorably thefirst year but by the second excessive demand and reductions in investment and production pushedinflation into triple digits The economic problems were compounded by black markets hoarding andsabotage of infrastructure by right-wing groups The government was running out of cash its reserveswere depleted and the congress would not pass tax increases In response Allende resorted to printingmoney which of course made inflation worse

But the breakdown of Chilean democracy cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of economic policy AsArturo Valenzuela puts it the breakdown must be understood as the failure to structure a viable center ina highly polarized society with strong centrifugal tendencies (1978 p 59) Moderates from the UP and theChristian Democratic Party (CD) could not build a centrist coalition around support of continued economicreforms using lawful democratic means Elements on the far right and left kept tugging at the centermaking compromise impossible Disloyal parties on the right supported a return to the economic statusquo ante and were prepared to use violence to achieve it Disloyal parties on the left wanted a clean breakwith the capitalist system and were willing to go beyond democratic rules to get it Progressives within theCD were being marginalized and they split off to form other parties CD moderates believed Allendesnationalization of property went too far and were alarmed at the land seizures spurred on by the radicalleft Conservative forces finally took control of the CD refusing to negotiate in good faith with AllendeMeanwhile far-left elements within Allendes coalition beat back efforts to negotiate with the other side andkept testing the limits with illegal land seizures and other confrontational tactics The result was extremepolarization

All of this was made worse by US covert intervention At the direction of President Richard Nixon andNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a secret interagency committee orchestrated a multiprongedoperation aimed at fomenting a coup undermining the economy manipulating the media and funnelingmoney to the opposition Despite Kissingers contention that the US-led coup plotting ended in the fall of1970 there is enough evidence to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency persisted in stimulatinginterest in a coup deacutetat among right-wing Chilean officers well into 1973 Meanwhile the CIA planted

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

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ChileThe Chilean military coup of September 11 1973 by contrast was largely unexpected The armed forcesstruck suddenly and violently that morning bombing La Moneda (the presidential palace) capturing orkilling members of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity or UP) government and leading President SalvadorAllende to take his own life The Chilean armed forces were known as constitutionalists willing to remainsubordinate to the elected government notwithstanding political and ideological disagreements they mayhave had with those in office The Chilean military also had a habit of staying aloof from the political sceneso that few Chilean civilians knew much about them There was much less intermingling between politicalparty operators and soldiers there than in Uruguay Anticommunist sentiments ran strong in the militarybut constitutional commanders kept the lid on displeasure over the Marxist government Not until the failedcoup attempt of June 29 1973 did suspicions arise Still Allendes confidence in his constitutionalistofficers remained solid so much so that on August 23 just nineteen days before the coup he replacedarmy commander General Carlos Prats with none other than Augusto Pinochet the future Chilean dictator

Allende pursued a socialist agenda but did so within the framework of the constitution Lacking theassistance of a largely hostile congress the president could implement some of his agenda via executiveaction He generated consumer demand and redistributed income via government spending on housingeducation and health and expropriation of industries and banks The economy responded favorably thefirst year but by the second excessive demand and reductions in investment and production pushedinflation into triple digits The economic problems were compounded by black markets hoarding andsabotage of infrastructure by right-wing groups The government was running out of cash its reserveswere depleted and the congress would not pass tax increases In response Allende resorted to printingmoney which of course made inflation worse

But the breakdown of Chilean democracy cannot be laid solely at the doorstep of economic policy AsArturo Valenzuela puts it the breakdown must be understood as the failure to structure a viable center ina highly polarized society with strong centrifugal tendencies (1978 p 59) Moderates from the UP and theChristian Democratic Party (CD) could not build a centrist coalition around support of continued economicreforms using lawful democratic means Elements on the far right and left kept tugging at the centermaking compromise impossible Disloyal parties on the right supported a return to the economic statusquo ante and were prepared to use violence to achieve it Disloyal parties on the left wanted a clean breakwith the capitalist system and were willing to go beyond democratic rules to get it Progressives within theCD were being marginalized and they split off to form other parties CD moderates believed Allendesnationalization of property went too far and were alarmed at the land seizures spurred on by the radicalleft Conservative forces finally took control of the CD refusing to negotiate in good faith with AllendeMeanwhile far-left elements within Allendes coalition beat back efforts to negotiate with the other side andkept testing the limits with illegal land seizures and other confrontational tactics The result was extremepolarization

All of this was made worse by US covert intervention At the direction of President Richard Nixon andNational Security Advisor Henry Kissinger a secret interagency committee orchestrated a multiprongedoperation aimed at fomenting a coup undermining the economy manipulating the media and funnelingmoney to the opposition Despite Kissingers contention that the US-led coup plotting ended in the fall of1970 there is enough evidence to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency persisted in stimulatinginterest in a coup deacutetat among right-wing Chilean officers well into 1973 Meanwhile the CIA planted

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

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Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

assets within the Chilean media to portray Allende in an unfavorable light and the US governmentindirectly funded the right-wing paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad while cutting off nearly allbilateral and multilateral economic assistance to the Chilean government

The armed forces were the last to move Right up to the final moment the coup plotters faced resistancefrom fellow officers and top commanders were forced to resign It took a lot of convincing to get Pinochetbehind the plot When he finally came on board coup success was assured and the Allende governmentmet its demise

ArgentinaFor Argentines the sight of the military taking over the Casa Rosada (the presidential palace) on March24 1976 was not unfamiliar The military had toppled governments in 1930 1943 1955 1962 and 1966From 1955 on coups in Argentina all constituted military solutions to the Peronist problem Electedpresident three times Juan Peroacutens (1895ndash1974) brand of politics was objectionable to the armed forcesand their political party and social class allies who resented Peroacutens use of his executive powers to forgeLatin Americas largest most powerful trade union movement He did this during the early expansivephase of ISI when economic expansion seemed to have unlimited potential and granting huge wageincreases to labor seemed cost free Peroacuten also exploited his charismatic popular appeal to build themovement that bore his name and that in pursuit of its goals often trampled on the democratic rights andfreedoms of its opponents The military moved in first to put an end to Peroacutens own presidency in 1955and then to prevent his movements resurgence in 1962 and 1966

The 1976 coup also targeted the Peronists but the political dynamics had changed in the interveningyears with the birth of guerrilla organizations The ERP was an ideologically united Trotskyist insurgencywhereas the Montoneros were officially affiliated with the Peronist movement and advocated a form ofnational anti-imperialism laden with romantic notions of socialism The Montoneros were convinced that ifPeroacuten could be restored to power (from his position in exile) he would follow a revolutionary course withthemselves in the vanguard Quite naturally the military viewed these armed guerrilla organizations withconsiderable distress and even before coming to power were already pursuing a fierce counterinsurgencyoffensive against the ERP in the mountainous northwest region of Tucumaacuten province

The exiled Peroacuten famously said he had a left hand and a right and would use them both He encouragedthe leftwing Montoneros violence forcing the military government at the time to acknowledge that only hecould contain them and would do so only on condition of his return to Argentina Peroacuten won his return in1973 and then won the presidency for the third time in a special election that fall Once in powerbalancing left and right proved to be untenable The Peronist radical youth and Montoneros wanted topush the class struggle setting the stage for socialism The Labor aristocracy wanted no part in this andneither did Peroacuten who finally divorced himself from the Montoneros in a fiery May Day speech in 1974The Montoneros felt betrayed and turned against their erstwhile leader The conflict now pitted rightwingPeronists against leftwing Peronists Peroacutens minister of social welfare Joseacute Loacutepez Rega organized aparamilitary group called the AAA which launched assassinations against leftists while the Montonerosand others on the left struck back Peroacuten died in July 1974 as the violence in his country spiraled out ofcontrol His third wife Isabel took the reins but was completely incapable of governing Unlike herhusband Isabel Peroacuten lacked the political clout or skill to preserve the social pact between workers andowners Wage price spirals ensued resulting in triple-digit inflation and economic collapse As the violenceescalated she ceded more and more authority to her military commanders until finally they pushed her

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

out of office in March 1976

The Argentine denouement can be characterized as a process of political fragmentation polarizationviolence and economic decline The Peronist Party could no longer keep its coalition of supporterstogether as its left and right arms collided and the center gave way in the midst of assassinations andwidespread panic In the context of uncontained violence and steep economic decline a vacuum wascreated which the military filled

The Nature of Military Rule

The authoritarian regimes in the Southern Cone and Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s distinguishedthemselves from their predecessors by virtue of their desire to rule for extended periods of time Althoughall understood that eventually some form of democratic rule would be restored eventually could mean along time indeed The average duration of these dictatorships would turn out to be fourteen years Unlikethe military leaders of past eras these officers were prepared to stay in power until fundamental socialpolitical and economic changes were implemented In this respect these regimes at the very leastintended to be transformational in nature Whether or not they succeeded is a different matter entirely

What military rulers meant by transformation had first and foremost to do with defeating the movementsand parties inspired by Marxian ideas These military men were convinced not only that such groupsposed an existential threat to their nations but that their defeat would be achieved only by creating aformidable national security state That state would be prepared to sacrifice individual security for the sakeof the collective good It would feature a repressive apparatus that would penetrate every region everyorganization and every sphere of political and social life This state-led assault would in essence cleansethe polity of unwanted political elements which in turn would permit other kinds of transformations of aneconomic nature to take place In particular these military rulers wanted to replace the generousprotective welfare economies of the past with unfettered free-market economies that could attract foreigninvestors by clamping down on unions and wage earners

All these military regimes came to power with similar motivations yet they did not rule in the samemanner They differed in how they organized themselves inside the state Military commanders had tomake important decisions early on What will be the relationship between the military organization and thegovernment Will we as soldiers oversee the day-to-day affairs of government or will we leave that tocivilians If the military is involved in the government how so Will it be rule by a junta rule by a collegialbody of officers or rule by one general If civilians hold cabinet positions how will the armed servicesassure that the policies that are made reflect their interests The four military regimes under discussioncame up with different answers

BrazilMilitary rule in Brazil was collegial in nature Presidents were hand-picked by senior officers and ruled onlywith their blessings and for a set period of time they were the officers delegates Yet presidents weregiven the authority to fully preside over the government so long as they operated within the guidelines setby the generals The governments were extensively civilianized outside of the defense-related ministriesFor example from 1964 to 1983 seventy-six of ninety ministerial heads were civilian But this regime wasdesigned to ensure that though the military qua institution would stand apart from the government it

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

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Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

would stay close by Thus the generals placed military personnel in political offices in close proximity to thepresident Military personnel from the division of security and information which reported to the nationalsecurity council kept tabs on government seeing to it that policies were in conformance with militarywishes and national security concerns This system successfully guarded against personalismo(personalism) through strict promotion and retirement rules presidential rotation and the dispersion ofauthority to other institutional centers of power beyond the presidency including the national securitycouncil and the legislature

Brazils was the longest surviving dictatorship in the region lasting twenty-one years The first militarygovernment of Humberto Castelo Branco (1964ndash1967) at first envisioned a shorter time horizon with aslow extrication from power to begin by 1966 or 1967 That outlook quickly changed with the militaryissuing a series of Institutional Acts (IAs) that in fact implied a much longer stay in office IAs abolishedexisting parties and banned key party leaders from political life for ten years indicating that the militaryitself would have to fill the leadership gap by remaining in power These laws set the foundation for astrong executive branch granting it the exclusive authority to declare a state of siege (no congressionalauthorization needed) and to set the national budget Congress could no longer act as a refuge forlegislators because the IAs stripped them of parliamentary immunity paving the way for assaults on theirpolitical rights The courts meanwhile were subject to greater executive oversight All federal judges wereappointed by the president job guarantees were eliminated and civilians charged with national securitycrimes were processed in military tribunals However the military did not eliminate civilian courts andactually collaborated closely with them

If there was one IA that stood as a reminder of the militarys longer time horizons it was IA5 Decreed inDecember 1968 it restated the powers set forth in earlier IAs but without any time limits It marked thebeginning of a new more ominous phase of the dictatorship eliminating habeas corpus allowing forarbitrary arrests disbanding the congress and setting the stage for an extensive purge of political figuresfollowed by massive assaults on the human rights of ordinary citizens With IA5 and the coming to powerof General Emiacutelio Meacutedici (1969ndash1974) the following year the regime unleashed its intelligence units andparamilitary forces against real and imagined political opponents The National Intelligence Service(Serviccedilo Nacional de Informaccedilotildees or SNI) became so powerful that it was described as a state within astate For all intents and purposes it had become the fourth armed service after the army air force andnavy SNI answered to no one and its activities were never scrutinized Its offices were situated in everyministry or department at federal and state levels where it was able to monitor activity screen personneland examine the security implications of any policy Its structure was pyramidal At its apex the directorhad cabinet status At its base it operated a sprawling network of interrogation centers

As powerful as SNI was it was not the only or even the main instrument of repression Other organizationswere formed that in theory were answerable to SNI but that in practice enjoyed considerable autonomyFor instance the Information Operations DepartmentndashCenter for Internal Defense Operations(Departamento de Operaccedilotildees InternasndashCentro de Operaccedilotildees de Defesa Interna or DOI-CODI) formed inJanuary 1970 was described by the Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo as the most important organ for politicalrepression responsible for the greatest number of human rights violations (1986 p 65) Located withinthe army its plainclothes operators could and did plausibly deny they had any links to the military

It was these operators who abducted people from their homes or plucked them off the streets cartingthem away to SNI interrogation centers where they were preventively detained for weeks without court

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

appearances or the benefit of defense counsel It is there that detainees were tortured with the assistanceof doctors as was later the case in Uruguay who advised the abusers how to conduct such sessionswithout leaving marks or traces and how to revive victims so they could be tortured again It is estimatedthat some 50000 Brazilians were imprisoned during the dictatorship 20000 of those were tortured and10000 exiled Yet compared to Argentina or Chile Brazil suffered far fewer political murders in absolute orper capita terms According to the Archdiocese some 125 people were thought to be disappeared and atotal of 500 killed

Part of the reason for the lower death figures is that the Brazilian regime was of two minds and twofactions Most military presidents maintained some balance between hardline and softline factions withintheir administrations in an effort to accommodate both Though the hardliners tended to dominate duringthe period from 1968 to 1973 their repression set off efforts by softliners to rein in the intelligence forcesrelax political restrictions and establish a dialogue with the opposition This began in earnest underPresident Ernesto Geisel (1974ndash1979) who proceeded cautiously He wanted to liberalize the regimewithout unduly antagonizing los duros (hardliners) who still exerted considerable sway within the militaryIt was a difficult balancing act The question repeatedly arose how could the authoritarian regime bedecompressed without risking its dismantling

The regime also understood the value of legitimation This is why it permitted a revamped legislature tofunction After banishing preexisting parties the military formed two new onesmdashARENA which sided withthe regime and MDB which represented the opposition Although the MDB had no illusions about thelimits of its power under military tutelage it nonetheless used the congressional arena to its advantageexpressing outrage over press censorship other forms of repression and tax policies It attacked thegovernment but not the military per se in order to thwart retaliation These maneuvers were largelysymbolic yet valuable for Brazilians who were fearful of the regime and had no other outlets for theirgrievances Though the congress was suspended at the end of 1968 for two years as Thomas Skidmorenotes the thread of congressional legitimacy had not been broken (1988 p 153) The congress wasnever abolished as it was in Argentina Chile and Uruguay In this manner the regime maintained amantle of legitimacy and a political link to regime opponents That link in turn permitted the regime to bringthe moderate opposition on board with a strategy of gradual but sustained liberalization which eventuallyled to a return to democratic rule

UruguayThe Uruguayan military regime like the Brazilian regime operated in a collegial fashion There was nosingle caudillo or military strong man The retirement rules forced top generals out within two years so thatno one could remain long enough to establish a real presence Presidents (four of them) had to retire fromthe service before assuming office so that they would not enjoy the dual roles of commander and head ofstate (as did General Pinochet in Chile) Power resided in the Junta de Oficiales Generales (the Junta ofGeneral Officers or JOG) which grew to include twenty-eight generals and which had delegated itself theauthority to deliberate on all key strategic issues Given that many decisions required a two-thirds votethere had to be consensus Although this was an unwieldy decision-making structure it prevented power-hungry officers from dueling with each other and helped to maintain regime unity When on occasion amilitary leader would attempt to rise above the rest the JOG would rein him in

Uruguays generals preferred to keep their distance from day-to-day governance of affairs outside ofnational security As powerful as it was the JOG was not the government it worked behind the scenes

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

No active duty officer ever held the presidency during the authoritarian rule period All ministries with theexception of interior were headed and staffed by civilians Officers were placed in every ministry atsecond- or third-tier positions to keep tabs on the civilians And the military did run some state enterprisesHence the Uruguayan dictatorship kept some separation between the military institution and thegovernment all the while maintaining enough of a connection to ensure that its interests would beprotected The exception to this rule was the judiciary where the military ran roughshod over civiliancourts and magistrates seizing control completely

The military always conceived theirs as a transitory dictatorship But rather than enable political life toresuscitate they suffocated it For example the military ousted President Juan Bordaberry in 1976 foradvocating an institutional order devoid of any political parties The military argued this would simplycreate a vacuum that the Marxists would fill Although the military wanted the traditional parties to surviveironically following the departure of Bordaberry the generals initiated a series of Institutional Acts thatsuspended all political activity and political rights for some 15000 individualsmdashprecisely those politicianswho could have led the traditional parties They did this to purify the party ranks to begin anew with aclean slate of leaders who would aspire to the militarys objectives The problem of course was that inprohibiting political life as they did for nearly ten years no new generation of political leaders couldemerge Only the old standard bearers remained waiting in the wings for their chance to reenter thepolitical arena

None of the military political plans promulgated between 1974 and 1977 made much sense nor did theybenefit from any consultation with members of society The 1977 plan set a timetable for a plebiscite on anew constitution followed by elections in 1981 Though it seemed to construct a road toward democracy itwas paved with bad intentions ratifying the original goals of the 1973 military revolution and assuring themilitarys tutelage over whatever new political system might emerge These plans reflected the militarysown ambivalence about how much change they could really tolerate The repression of all those groupswho could have been included in a national dialogue about the political future suggested that the truthwas not much

The regime codified its repressive strategy through the use of Institutional Acts 1 4 and 5 whichrespectively suspended elections banned political activity and made human rights subordinate to theprotection of national security The military ousted labor leaders and seized control of their unions placingthem under the authority of the labor ministry They intervened in universities arresting rectors deansand hundreds of faculty and students while eviscerating the social science and humanities curricula InOrwellian fashion the regime divided all public employees into three categories A B and C The firstcould continue employment the second were to be monitored carefully and the third were fired had theirpassports confiscated and were often imprisoned These were people with a record meaning theyshared some sympathy with unions or political organizations Not one was found guilty of havingcommitted any crime under Uruguays criminal code

Uruguay earned notoriety for having the largest per capita prison population in the world At one point oneout of every fifty people in the country was in detention As elsewhere in the Southern Cone suspectswere sent to clandestine detention centers all run by the military and police where torture was practicedIn fact torture was perhaps more routinized in Uruguay than anywhere else Yet the military took care notto kill its prisoners bringing them to the edge of death and back again Such measures required thecomplicity of medical doctors who would instruct the guards on how much electric voltage could be applied

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

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Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

short of lethality Keeping abused prisoners alive and then eventually setting them free was a strategydesigned to send a chilling reminder to the rest of society about the fate that awaited others should theycontemplate resisting the regime

ChileWhat began in Chile as a junta-style military dictatorship turned into a more personalized dictatorshipwithin a short time In the beginning all executive power resided in the junta with the legislative branchshut down and political parties proscribed The junta comprised the four commanders from the army navyair force and military police The president of the nation would be rotated among those four and the headof the army Augusto Pinochet was slated to serve first Pinochet did not particularly like thesearrangements and sought a greater concentration of power for himself on a permanent basis To achievethis goal he pursued a five-pronged strategy The first was to get the other commanders to agree to allowthe president to exercise sole executive power while ceding legislative control to the junta He won theirconsent by parceling out ministries among the four services This new power arrangement was enshrinedin the June 1974 Statute of the Governing Junta which also conferred on Pinochet the title of SupremeChief of the Nation while still retaining his designation as armed forces commander

The second strategy was to change the rules on promotions and retirements in order to carve out a morecompliant officer corps He did this by creating a new promotion board usurping powers for himselfpreviously held by a collection of senior ranking officers from all the services In this manner he eliminatedoutside reviews or appeals forcing out all those soldiers he did not trust He increased the number ofrankings at the level of general He then allowed for swifter ascension to colonel but made it more difficultto climb beyond brigadier general This had the dual effect of generating more loyalty among junior officersby permitting a fast track toward a successful career while slowing the climb at the highest ranks therebycreating seniority distance between himself and other top officers Genaro Arriagada (1988) refers to thisimprovised system as tarnished professionalism because Pinochet introduced instability andarbitrariness into these decisions Nonetheless the system worked remarkably well for Pinochet whofaced practically no resistance from the rank and file

The third strategy was to divide and conquer Pinochet created dual hierarchies one more politicalappointing officers as mayors and governors and the other more military in character assigning officers tocommand posts in and around the cities or provinces where those mayors and governors were locatedOne set of officers kept tabs on the other and each reported back directly to the president This was ameans of keeping potential rivals off balance The fourth strategy was to keep the military vested in theregime yet divorced from policy decisions Pinochet assigned officers temporarily to government postswithout loss of pay rank or pension when serving in a ministry those officers were obedient to Pinochetrather than to the commanders serving over them in their normal military units Their government servicewas limited to staffing positions within the ministries while the sensitive policy-making roles at the topincreasingly went to civilians This system shielded officers politically yet kept them tied to the governmentIn this manner Chiles military stayed loyal to the dictatorship but free of the divisive turf battles that wouldplague the Argentine armed forces as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this essay

The final element in Pinochets grand strategy was the creation of a single covert intelligence unit theDireccioacuten de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA National Intelligence Directorate) DINA replaced the separatebranch agencies and while in theory it served the junta in reality it answered only to Pinochet through hishand-picked director Manuel Contreras The top DINA appointments went to army personnel leaving

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

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Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

subordinate positions to the air force and navy This arrangement proved useful allowing Pinochet toweed out supposed foes in the other branches while continuing to consolidate his hold on the army

DINA along with military and police units pursued Allendes sympathizers and other enemies with anunrelenting fury In fact the regime considered Chile to be in a state of war thus justifying arbitrary arrestswithout court orders and the full suspension of constitutional liberties and political rights At the time themilitary did not contemplate the damage such an assertion would cause them later when courts held themto Geneva War Convention standards for treatment of political detainees When placed under courtscrutiny in the 1990s and beyond they embarrassingly stepped back from their war claims In the fewweeks and months after the coup thousands were herded into makeshift concentration camps such as theNational Stadium where many were executed Roundups and raids continued nationwide in homesfactories and political offices

The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation which was established in 1990 toinvestigate human rights abuses under Pinochets rule rejected the dictatorships claim that manysuspects died in shootouts with soldiers or in flight from the authorities Rather the Commissions reportissued in 1991 found that all the victims were unarmed confined and defenseless According to theCommission the Pinochet regime managed to kill or disappear some 2300 citizens but subsequent to thereport that number came to be widely considered as too low Of those who were disappeared most endedup buried in unmarked graves or dumped in the Pacific Ocean Some 45 percent of the victims wereworkers peasants and students Roughly half the victims were members of left-wing parties butsignificantly some 46 percent had no active political affiliations at all belying the military claim that ittargeted only its political enemies

DINA also helped organize regional military-intelligence collaboration between the authoritarian regimes ofthe time called Operation Condor Condor was a secret alliance between Chile Argentina BrazilUruguay Paraguay and Bolivia designed to track down and eradicate all rivals to the dictatorships armedand unarmed civilian and military Condor members pooled their data and allowed the intelligenceagencies of other members to operate inside their borders Suspects were arrested interrogated torturedand then killed or returned to their countries of origin Condors victims included notable military andpolitical figures In 1974 its agents assassinated former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats (1915ndash1974)who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires Argentina Despite having been removed from his commanda year before Prats was still considered a potential rival to Pinochet and thus had to be eliminatedLeftwing Uruguayan Senator Zelmar Michelini (1924ndash1976) and Congressman Hector Gutieacuterrez Ruiz(1934ndash1976) were very well respected politicians who had to flee for their lives to Argentina after themilitary closed down the parliament in 1973 Like Prats they too met their fate in Buenos Aires At theorders of Uruguayan Commander in Chief General Gregorio Alvarez the two were abducted from theirliving quarters and murdered by Condor operators in 1975 What began in Latin America becameinternational in 1976 when Chile and its neighbors formed hit squads to eliminate opponents livingabroad That year Orlando Letelier the former Chilean ambassador to the United States for the Allendegovernment and his co-worker Ronni Moffitt lost their lives in a DINA-orchestrated car bombing inWashington DC Disturbingly it later came to light that the US government had substantial informationabout the Condor network at the time of its operations and yet did nothing to deter it

The Pinochet regime was a success if that is measured by the decimation of its organized opposition andthe ability to stay in power for a long time (seventeen years) as compared to other military regimes Some

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

also attribute economic success to the regime as it eventually put Chile on a path of sound growth andlow inflation But economic prosperity at the same time spelled the loss of wage-earning power among thelower income groups the weakening of unions and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Giventhat many other countries have been able to implement neoliberal economic programs under democraticauspices the Pinochet regime must be taken to task for having implemented such policies while robbingcitizens of their rights freedoms and lives

ArgentinaIn March 1976 a military junta took power constituting the supreme organ of the nation The junta wouldbe the unified expression of military power Unlike in Uruguay there would be no separation betweenmilitary and government institutions The military itself would govern it would superimpose its personnelhierarchy and rules on the government to implement a far-reaching social economic and political plandubbed el Proceso or the Process It would ensure a power-sharing arrangement between the army airforce and navy No service would have an unfair advantage each would participate fully and co-equally ingoverning The president would be chosen by and would answer to the junta and the presidency would berotated between the three commanders The first so designated was General Jorge Videla of the army

The services negotiated a division of the cabinet with the army grabbing the ministries of interior andlabor the navy getting foreign relations and social welfare and the air force heading up defense andjustice Government posts within these ministries were occupied mainly by active duty officers followed byretired officers and then civilians The junta devised a legislative advisory council with three membersfrom each service that would review all laws proposed by either the junta or president Any legislationdisputed by the president would go back to the junta for a final decision Moreover each branchcommander would be seconded by a secretary general who had his own advisory cabinet that wouldreview proposed legislation and then confer with the advisory cabinets from the other branches to try tosort out their differences Although this process had the advantage of subjecting bills to ample scrutiny ithad the disadvantage of creating numerous friction points

As it turned out the branches operated less as a unified whole and more as three turf-protecting arms ofthe regime There was no system put in place to assure coordination and compromise Thus the presidentcould not proceed on his own and repeatedly contended with a military institution that did not act or speakwith one mind Conflicts repeatedly arose over labor policy political plans presidential succession rulesguidelines versus timetables for transition the speed of transition and so forth Conflict over economicpolicy posed an especially serious problem The juntas civilian economic minister Joseacute Alfredo Martiacutenezde Hoz pushed for the adoption of a harsh neoliberal program The generals liked the plan in the abstractbecause its call for a smaller state meant organized labor would lose power But in practice the plan meantshrinking ministries and privatizing state enterprises and no service branch wanted to lose an advantageto the others by placing its own bureaucratic fiefdom on the chopping block Top commanders publiclycriticized aspects of the plan impeding the economic ministers quest to radically transform the state andeconomy The economic minister believed that President Videla would afford him some autonomy from therest of the military so that he could devise and engineer his plan in a technocratic manner He was wrongInstead he found out that the president could not shield him or his economic team from the divisive politicsof what had become a feudal military regime

Turf battles notwithstanding the military was able to pursue its national security plan with a modicum ofcooperation The Proceso regime mounted a ferocious campaign against what it perceived as enemies of

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

state It vanquished the Montoneros and ERP within the first year of rule Its modus vivendi was not warbut political repression against a broad swath of society The Proceso generals suspected a subversivethreat nearly everywhere A subversive was not just someone with a gun but also someone with ideasthe generals were convinced such individuals operated insidiously within unions universities parties andprofessional associations To eliminate this threat the armed forces carved the nation into security zonessubzones and areas displacing political functionaries with military personnel Directly under the juntawere five army corps commanders each heading up an area Under them were infantry and cavalrybrigade commanders responsible for 35 subzones and below them regiment and battalion leaders incharge of 210 areas Those regiment and battalion commanders also had direct authority over theClandestine Centers of Detention (CCDs) some 340 nationwide where suspects were detained withoutcharge and subjected to torture on a routine basis It was later revealed that these CCDs were located inpolice stations and military installations and some 700 officers took part in their operations

Suspects were initially rounded up by work teams comprised of military personnel Police were orderedto cordon off a neighborhood and then turn over all authority to the work teams which would move door todoor raiding homes abducting people and stealing possessions The military made no effort todisassociate itself from these informal groups To the contrary officers frequently rotated in and out ofwork teams so that everyone could get their hands dirty and also profit from the booty of war Makingsure that many were involved in the worst atrocities meant that everyone had some culpability and thusthat no one would be tempted to betray fellow officers at some future date by testifying against them Thissharing of collective guilt separates the Argentine model of repression from the Chilean and Brazilianones

The Argentines also learned something valuable from the Chilean military whose coup had precededtheirs by two and a half years Because the executions of Chilean leftists in the weeks following the coupwere publicly exposed the world community became aware of the extent of the atrocities Chile instantlybecame an international pariah and was repeatedly condemned in the United Nations The Argentineswanted to avoid a similar fate and thus made disappearance their modus operandi People wereapprehended imprisoned and never heard from againmdashbecoming los desaparecidos the disappearedThe authorities consistently denied knowledge of their whereabouts They were also duplicitous routinelydenying in public that there was any official policy of extermination via disappearances though admittingthat some may have met that fate because of the excesses of a handful of officers As human rightsinquiries would later demonstrate the excesses were the orders According to a secret directive of thejunta in 1976 all commanders were told to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the subversive threatAlthough the entire repressive apparatus was under military auspices local commanders especially thosewith CCDs in their purview were given ample discretion resulting in what Craig Arceneaux describes asdeteriorating lines of authority and encouraging a sense of impunity (2001 p 114) Infamouscommanders of CCDs such as General Ramoacuten Camps were fond of saying that they held in their ownhandsmdashthe power of life or death over their captives

When all was said and done some 20000 to 30000 Argentines were killed or disappeared andpresumed dead during the Proceso years This represents the highest death toll for any of the SouthernCone regimes and the worst episode of state-sanctioned terror in the modern Argentine era The militarymay have won the battle against subversion but they lost the political war They never built alliances withmembers of society whether workers or capitalists And their systematic acts of cruelty resulted inunprecedented public moral repudiation and disgust This moral revulsion redounded back into the

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

barracks to bruise the militarys self-image and ultimately to throw the regime into disarray How theProceso came unraveled is a subject explored in the section on transitions

Transitions to Democracy

All the military dictatorships would give way to democracies in this part of Latin America But thetransitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes differed according to how much power the outgoinggenerals could exert over the process Where the armed forces left office more confident and united witha strategic plan for the future they could set the terms for the transition By contrast where they left officedemoralized and discredited they had to cede greater influence over the transition to the democraticopposition

BrazilThe terms often used to describe the Brazilian transition to democratic rule are liberalization and aberturaor opening The regime did not set a clear trajectory toward democracy let alone offer goals andtimetables Rather it was more preoccupied with legitimizing itself After all the regime could claim somesuccess on the economic front having engineered what became known as the Brazilian miracle withsustained rates of growth of 8 to 10 percent during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s The militarybelieved that civil society already benefiting from a growing economy would look favorably upon theregimes overtures that success could translate into greater popularity for the regime and its leaders

The regime also made overtures to society to counter the growing autonomy of the security agencies Asstated earlier many military leaders feared that the intelligence agencies had become a state within thestate with no accountability or oversight Hardliners had penetrated every rank and for them continuedrepression was a livelihood if not a career To counter this President Geisel relaxed press restrictions andestablished connections with the Catholic Church and leaders in civil society A freer press couldinvestigate and expose human rights abuses within the security community chastening those agenciesinto greater compliance with the government Reaching out to civil society was a means of building a civil-military coalition of support in favor of continued liberalization

But Geisel played both sides of the fence To keep the military in line behind his program he madeconcessions to the hard right in the form of key appointments and promotions Refusing to nullify IA5 helauded the work of the security agencies and said democracy was a distant goal Repression actuallyincreased in 1975ndash1976 even as the president was pursuing a policy of abertura Alfred Stepans (1988)thesis on this contradiction is that part of the security community was still out of control and to sabotagethe abertura they increased repression as a demonstration that the left still posed a significant threatGeisel and his softline advisor General Golbery do Cuoto e Silva pursued divide-and-rule tactics usingthe SNI itself in an effort to bridle the other securityintelligence agencies By 1978 the situation hadchanged and Geisel seemed to be a more consistent proponent of liberalization repealing IA5 andreintroducing habeas corpus for political prisoners

Geisels successor General Joatildeo Baptista Figueiredo (1979ndash1985) pursued the abertura while appointingand promoting hardliners as a way of keeping them co-opted into the process At his inauguration in March1979 he pledged to make his country a democracy In that year he decreed a wide-ranging amnesty thatfreed both the political left and the military from prosecution allowing many refugees to return to Brazil

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

Figueiredo was generally seen as a weak figure who presided over an economic downturn Yet theliberalization process never really escaped his control and advanced according to the militarys owntimetable Craig Arceneaux (2001) argues that this was possible because the political parties were playingby the rules the regime had devised They accepted the prohibition on radical parties and military tutelagein certain policy areas Thus the terms of transition had been largely set by the military itself And when themilitary finally turned the gavel over to the elected president Tancredo Neves in 1985 many feared thearmed forces would continue to exert a disturbingly heavy influence on democracys course

UruguayThe militarys failure to develop linkages with important social economic or political groups proved to beits undoing Lines of communication with even the most economically powerful interests were severedand hence the regime could never cultivate a support base for itself When the armed forces most neededpublic affirmationmdashin 1980 when its new constitution went before the electorate for approvalmdashthataffirmation was not forthcoming

The military leaders wanted a gradual transition toward democracy but one they could controlUnfortunately for them their strategy was flawed They arranged to have the vote on a new constitutionbefore lifting the ban on political party activity This meant that at the time of the plebiscite there were nonew political leaders no reactivation of political life and thus no one for the military to cultivate To wit theconstitution had undesirable elements that the voters disliked a permanent executive role for the NationalSecurity Council or Cosena de Seguridad Nacional a Political Control Commission with powers to dismissany civilian official and sanction party leaders and a prohibition on all leftist parties Expressing self-confidence on the eve of the plebiscitemdashperhaps after having seen Pinochets victory in a similarreferendummdashthe military was shocked when their constitution went down to crushing defeat 572 to 428percent

This represented the beginning of the end for the dictatorship It took another five years to complete thetransition to democracy which progressed in fits and starts The armed forces had been defeated at thepolls but were not a vanquished institution like their Argentine counterparts They had presided overmoderate economic growth and were able to maintain sufficient unity in the ranks Still the balance ofpower had now shifted and the military was unable to control the transition it was forced to negotiate itsterms with the democratic opposition

The first military-political party talks at the Parque Hotel in 1983 broke off with no agreement The politicalparties argued that the military held to nonnegotiable and unacceptable positions including retaining theNSC allowing the president to declare a state of subversion and holding suspects for fifteen days withoutcharges Once the parties walked out the military responded by temporarily banning all public politicalactivity which only served to spur mass protests and labor strikes This looked like continuismo (more ofthe same) but the military had no real plan for what to do next and the ultimate transfer of power to ademocratic government was still on the table Talks resumed at the Club Naval in 1984 The militaryrefused to sit down with the Blanco party and its radical leader Wilson Fereira Because the ColoradoParty would not alone lend enough legitimacy to the negotiations a deal was struck to include the left-wingFrente Amplio party in the talks This time the negotiations resulted in an agreement Institutional Act 1suspending elections would be repealed the NSC would be an advisory body only future constitutionalreforms would be written by a constituent assembly and civilians could be tried in military courts onlyduring a state of insurrection

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

What was left unsaid was almost as important as what was said The military would not be officiallyimmunized from prosecution but neither would it be subjected to human rights trials and Wilson Ferreirawould be barred from running for president With those unofficial understandings in mind the path wascleared for competitive elections which took place in the fall of 1984

ArgentinaThe Argentine military regime of 1976 to 1983 collapsed under the weight of its own divisiveness andincompetence In the end the messianic images and promises that accompanied the military interventionfailed to deliver any credible results The juntas policy failuresmdashjudged unsatisfactory even within thebiased set of indicators chosen by the regime itselfmdashand its loss of faith in its programmatic objectivesthus weakened the ruling coalitions confidence in its own power promoted divisions within its ranks anddissuaded officers from engaging in future governance

Fissures that had been barely visible during the first phase of the Proceso surfaced as the regime nearedits end Each new cleavage cast a new disturbing light on an organization torn by conflict and self-doubtand contributed to its own loss of power Fault lines seemed to run in several directions The politicallyconservative economically liberal officers behind General Leopoldo Galtieri feuded with the politicallymoderate economically nationalist supporters of General and then President Roberto Viola The struggleculminated when the Galtieri forces ousted Viola in a palace coup on December 11 1981 The changing ofthe guard did nothing to reunite the armed forces and in fact only exposed the bitter internal powerstruggle that had been going on for months prior to the coup

Galtieris decision in April 1982 to go to war against the British over control of the Malvinas Islands (whichthe British call the Falklands) was a desperate act designed to reunify a badly split institution Thatendeavor too failed driving the final nail into the coffin of an inept military regime Even at war unitycontinued to elude the military There was no unified planning or command Each branch operated unto itsown as if it were fighting a separate war No effort was made to share in the collection analysis ordissemination of intelligence Each component circulated and recirculated its own data which was oftenpoor in quality not to mention incompatible with information picked up by other services After Argentinaspredictable defeat at the hands of the British in June 1982 the air force and navy refused to join thepostwar government of General Reynaldo Bignone Once abandoned Bignone could do little more thanschedule elections according to a timetable proposed by the democratic multiparty coalition

The generals made futile attempts to negotiate the terms of the transition with the democratic oppositionbut the balance of power had clearly shifted away from them A self-amnesty was issued but soonthereafter ruled unconstitutional by the courts The new government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) wasable to make a clean break with the Proceso embarking on an unprecedented human rights program TheMalvinas defeat and the breakup of the junta constituted a critical juncture in Argentine history when theold order gave way completely to the new order The military was no longer able to exert its harmfulinfluences on the polity and since then has remained firmly under civilian control

ChileWell into the 1980s the Pinochet regime exuded a confidence not shared by the other tyrannies in theregion Yet like the others this regime did not envisage itself remaining in power indefinitely There wouldbe a return to democracy but the transition would be a military-orchestrated one In fact the regimes

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

intent was to shape the future democracy itself in ways that would protect military prerogatives indefinitelyThe strategy was to formulate the legal architecturemdashembedded in a new constitutionmdashthat would giverise to a controlled transition and a protected democracy one in which the full weight of military authoritywould be felt The 1980 constitutionmdashstill in force though amendedmdashstipulated at the time that thepresident could not remove his top military commanders until their completion of term This provisionconstituted a serious erosion of civilian control In addition the military would guarantee the internal orderof the country which meant it would encroach on roles normally performed by the police The military-dominated National Security Council could be used to notify other branches about threats to securityFurthermore the constitution allowed for the appointment of nine nonelected senators who could bedesignated by the president the supreme court and the military itself

The constitution also set the phases and timetable for transition A plebiscite was to be held in 1988 onwhether or not the military regime should remain in power If Pinochet won that vote he would enjoyanother eight years in office If not then elections would be held in 1989 though Pinochet would remain asarmy commander for eight more years The main issue for the opposition was how to react to these termsShould they fight outside of Pinochets system or within it There was a genuine concern that if theyagreed to his rules of the game they would be shackling themselves to a democracy in name only oneeviscerated by military veto power In the end the opposition minus the communists risked following thepath laid out by Pinochet joining together to form a group called the Command for a No Vote

The next challenge was to convince enough citizens that the plebiscite was for real and that they need notfear voting Many Chileans were rightfully skeptical after the 1980 plebiscite on the constitution which wasconducted without electoral roles had no independent oversight to guarantee the authenticity of theprocess and allowed the opposition practically no time to mount an effective campaign This time theorganizers for the no vote persuaded voters it would be different The Constitutional Tribunal formed anindependent electoral commission that carefully prepared voter registration lists poll watchers wereassigned to each polling place and a parallel vote count was conducted as a hedge against fraud Theno vote won 547 percent to 43 percent with 23 percent representing nullified or blank ballots Pinochetwas furious and initially refused to accept the results But the other junta generals reminded him he hadsworn to uphold his own constitution and so he agreed to let the results stand

The no victory gave the opposition enough leverage to demand some constitutional reforms prior to the1989 presidential election As a result of negotiations the constitution was made easier to amend the banon Marxist parties was lifted the National Security Councils (Consejo de Seguidad Nacional) powers weredowngraded to advisory status and a civilian seat added and the number of elected senators to congresswas increased from twenty-six to thirty-eight to dilute the impact of the designated senators Nonethelessthis still left substantial constitutional limitations in place leading many to question whether Chilesdemocracy would ever be consolidated But for the moment at least all the pieces had fallen into placeOn December 14 1989 Christian Democratic candidate Patricio Aylwin representing a coalition of center-left parties handily defeated Pinochets candidate Hernaacuten Buchi The Chilean democracy was reborn

Democracy and Coping with the Human Rights Legacy

From a moral point of view it seemed clear to many in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentina that justicecould be served only by prosecuting and convicting all those military and police personnel who had

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

participated in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their opponents Indeed there were cries for vengeancein all of the countries soon after the democracies had been restored Arguably all the Southern Conedemocratic governments that assumed power after the transition were justified in investigating andprosecuting military human rights violators Although the scope and severity of crimes varied each of thefour military regimes easily qualified as consistent gross violators of human rights What seemed crystalclear from a moral point of view however was anything but clear from a political point of view Thepolitical leaders had to weigh a number of issues including the balance of power between the military andcivilians at the time of transfer the preferences of their parties and constituents the future electoralconsequences of their actions the strength of the human rights movements in their respective countriesand the depth and breadth of the crimes themselves

As a result of these considerations each of the human rights strategies pursued by the four countrieswhich differed in terms of their magnitude timing and impact fell short of a morally acceptable standardAt the outset the Argentine government of Rauacutel Alfonsiacuten (1983ndash1989) went farthest authorizing an officialinquiry and launching judicial proceedings against alleged perpetrators soon after assuming power Thiswas possible owing to the thorough collapse of the Proceso regime leaving the military demoralizeddiscredited and unable to throw its weight around In addition President Alfonsiacuten as a lawyer havingcourageously defended families of the disappeared during the dictatorship was personally committed to itThe courts successfully handed down long prison sentences for five of the ex-comandantes of the militaryjunta though these rulings were undone by pardons issued several years later by President CarlosMenem In Chile President Patricio Aylwin (1990ndash1994) called for an inquest which resulted in anextensive 1991 report on the disappeared Yet no trials were held Aylwin was quite cognizant ofPinochets warnings not to place any of his men in the dock Given how formidable the military appearedafter the transition it is surprising that the president was able to do anything in defense of human rightsThen again Aylwin represented a center-left coalition that clamored for a human rights response

In Uruguay and Brazil things were different Uruguayan president Julio Mariacutea Sanguinetti (1985ndash1990) notonly refused to consider investigations or trials but submitted a bill in 1986 that pardoned all military andpolice rights violators the bill passed Sanguinettis moves were surprising as well in that he seeminglyhad more room for maneuver than Aylwin because the transition had been negotiated rather than imposedby the outgoing regime But apparently Sanguinetti who was involved in the Club Naval talks made aback room deal with the military not to hold trials if he were elected president and he made good on thatpledge Still his blanket pardon seemed to go much further than required One explanation is thatSanguinetti represented a conservative party (Colorados) and constituency for whom the human rightsissue did not have great urgency In Brazil the militarys self-amnesty stood as a roadblock against anyprosecution Having watched the trials unfold in Argentina the Brazilian generals were especially worriedthat a future democratic government might annul the amnesty and haul officers into court on human rightscharges To date that has not happened

Since the early years of the post-transitional democracies an interesting phenomenon has occurredThere has been a second wave of human rights inquiries and trials in three of the four countries Thepassage of time has undoubtedly facilitated this human rights resurgence A new generation of officershas risen through the ranks with no connections to the dictatorships or dirty wars As their professionalascent has occurred under democratic rule they prefer to disassociate themselves from disreputablefigures of the past and hence have not stood in the way of judicial proceedings In addition a turn to thepolitical left has brought progressive leaders to power in Chile the Socialist Party members Ricardo

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

Lagos in 2000 followed by Michelle Bachelet in 2006 in Argentina the left-wing Peronist Nestor Kirchnerin 2003 and in Uruguay members of the left-wing Frente Amplio Tabareacute Vaacutesquez in 2005 and JoseacuteMujica in 2010 A strong human rights policy resonates with the supporters of these administrations

Nestor Kirchner took the lead in urging the Argentine congress and high court to reverse the pardons ofthe past allowing cases to be reopened By October 2010 748 ex-officers faced charges and 81 wereconvicted Among those sentenced was former military president General Reynaldo Bignone whoreceived a twenty-five-year sentence for kidnapping and torture

Chiles judiciary was resuscitated after the historic arrest and trial of Pinochet in London in 1998ndash99 At therequest of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzoacuten Scotland Yard arrested Pinochet in a London hospital where hehad gone to receive back surgery Garzoacuten wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain to stand trial on groundsthat he had committed crimes against humanity Such crimes are so heinous that according to theprinciple of universal jurisdictionmdashone that Garzoacuten embracedmdashany country could bring a perpetrator tojustice even for crimes committed in a foreign land The British magistrates agreed stripping Pinochet ofhis diplomatic immunity and setting the stage for his extradition But over the next year Pinochets defenselawyers engaged in legal maneuvers which finally succeeded in sending him back to Chile in March 2000Pinochets return seemed to shock the Chilean courts into a heightened determination to deliver justice forhuman rights victims From that moment forward the Courts handed down hundreds of indictmentsresulting in the conviction by June 2010 of 292 military personnel and civilian collaborators on grounds ofenforced disappearances extralegal executions and torture The Chilean Supreme Court ruled that themilitarys 1978 self-amnesty cannot apply to crimes against humanity As a result in July 2010 theconviction of former DINA head Manuel Contreras and his associate Pedro Espinoza to twenty years inprison each for the 1974 car bombing of General Carlos Prats was upheld

In Uruguay a renewed sense of urgency to indict the rapidly aging commanders was prompted by thestunning progress being made in Chile and Argentina and by the election of Vasquez succeeded byMujica himself a former Tupamaro guerrilla who had spent more than a decade in prison In October 2009Gregorio Alvarez former commander in chief of the army was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison forthirty-seven homicides Former president Juan Bordaberry was convicted and sentenced to thirty years onFebruary 10 2010 for violating the constitution Finally despite the coming to power of Worker Partycandidate Luiz Inaacutecio Lula da Silva in 2002 no human rights trials or inquiries have been conducted inBrazil Lula signed an order to form a truth commission but when the heads of all branches of the militaryalong with the minister of defense threatened to resign he backed down It remains to be seen whetherPresident Dilma Rousseff who succeeded Lula in 2011 will be able to stand up to the military and finallydeliver a modicum of justice for the victims and their families

New and Old Patterns

The systematic violation of human rights by military dictatorships in Brazil Uruguay Chile and Argentinaleft scars but time has helped these societies to heal Many lives were senselessly lost or ruined on behalfof extreme ideological causes of a political and economic nature Even Chile and Brazil the so-calledeconomic success stories could probably have delivered substantial growth and employment withoutresort to political repression Much of what these four regimes did was based on an overreaction to thecrises of the time Moving from one extreme to another as a means to resolve problems was in fact a

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

familiar pattern in Latin American history The political pendulum still swings in this part of the world butsince the late twentieth century its oscillations have narrowed to more reasonable alternativesFrustrations are dealt with at the ballot box not at the barracks Hopefully this pattern will hold

Bibliography

Alves Maria Helena Moreira State and Opposition in Military Brazil Austin University of Texas Press1985

Arceneaux Craig L Bounded Missions Military Regimes and Democratization in the Southern Cone andBrazil University Park Pennsylvania State University Press 2001

Archdiocese of Satildeo Paolo Torture in Brazil A Report Translated by Jaime Wright Edited by Joan DassinNew York Vintage Books 1986

Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Nunca Maacutes (Never Again) A Report London andBoston Faber and Faber 1986

Arriagada Genaro Pinochet The Politics of Power Translated by Nancy Morris Vincent Ercolano andKristen A Whitney Boston Unwin Hyman 1988

Brysk Alison The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina Protest Change and Democratization StanfordCA Stanford University Press 1994

Caetano Gerardo Breve Historia de la Dictadura 1973ndash1985 (Brief history of the dictatorship)Montevideo Uruguay CLAE 1991

Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation Report of the Chilean National Commission onTruth and Reconciliation Translated by Phillip E Berryman 2 vols Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1993

Collier David ed The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton NJ Princeton University Press1979

Constable Pamela and Arturo Valenzuela Nation of Enemies Chile under Pinochet New York andLondon Norton 1991

Fontana Andres Political Decision-Making by a Military Corporation Argentina 1976ndash83 PhDdissertation University of Texas at Austin 1987

Geddes Barbara What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years Annual Review ofPolitical Science 2 (1999) 115ndash144

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

Gillespie Charles Guy Negotiating Democracy Politicians and Generals in Uruguay Cambridge UK andNew York Cambridge University Press 1991

Gonzaacutelez Luis E Political Structures and Democracy in Uruguay Notre Dame IN University of NotreDame Press 1991

Human Rights Watch World Report New York Human Rights Watch 2011

Hunter Wendy Eroding Military Influence in Brazil Politicians Against Soldiers Chapel Hill and LondonUniversity of North Carolina Press 1997

Kaufman Edy Uruguay in Transition From Civilian to Military Rule New Brunswick NJTransaction1979

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Crisis Breakdown andReequilibration Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1978

Linz Juan J and Alfred Stepan eds The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Latin America BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press 1978

Longueira Daniel J Corbo El plebiscito constitucional de 1980 La derrota del proyecto militar paralegitimar un reacutegimen autoritario (The 1980 constitutional plebiscite The military plan to legitimize anauthoritarian regime) Montevideo Uruguay Ediciones Puerta del Sur 2006

Loveman Brian Misioacuten Cumplida Civil Military Relations and the Chilean Political Transition Journal ofInteramerican Studies and World Affairs 33 no 3 (1991) 35ndash74

ODonnell Guillermo Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Studies in South AmericanPolitics Berkeley Institute of International Studies University of California 1973

ODonnell Guillermo and Philippe C Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule Vol 4 TentativeConclusions about Uncertain Democracies Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

ODonnell Guillermo Philippe C Schmitter and Laurence L Whitehead eds Transitions fromAuthoritarian Rule Vol 2 Latin America Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1986

Pereira Anthony W Political (In)justice Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil Chile andArgentina Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh Press 2005

Pion-Berlin David The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina 1976ndash1983 Journal of Interamerican Studiesand World Affairs 27 no 2 (summer 1985) 55ndash76

Pion-Berlin David The Ideology of State Terror Economic Doctrine and Political Repression in Argentina

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

and Peru Boulder CO L Rienner 1989

Pion-Berlin David To Prosecute or to Pardon Human Rights Decision in the Latin American SouthernCone Human Rights Quarterly 16 no 1 (1994) 105ndash130

Pion-Berlin David Through Corridors of Power Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in ArgentinaUniversity Park Pennsylvania State University Press 1997

Remmer Karen Military Rule in Latin America Boulder CO Westview Press 1991

Rial Juan Las fuerzas armadas Soldados-poliacuteticos garantes de la democracia (Political soldiersGuarantors of the democracy) Montevideo Uruguay CIESU 1986

Servicio Paz y Justicia Uruguay Nunca Maacutes Human Rights Violations 1972ndash1985 Translated byElizabeth Hampsten Philadelphia Temple University Press 1992

Skidmore Thomas E The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil 1964ndash85 New York Oxford University Press1988

Stepan Alfred The Military in Politics Changing Patterns in Brazil Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress 1971

Stepan Alfred Rethinking Military Politics Brazil and the Southern Cone Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 1988

Stepan Alfred ed Authoritarian Brazil Origins Policies and Future New Haven CT Yale UniversityPress 1973

Valenzuela Arturo The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes Chile Baltimore Johns Hopkins UniversityPress 1978

Verbitsky Horacio The Flight Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior Translated by Esther Allen NewYork New Press 1996

Verdugo Patricio Chile Pinochet and the Caravan of Death Translated by Marcelo Montecino CoralGables FL University of Miami North-South Center Press 2001

Weinstein Martin Uruguay Democracy at the Crossroads Boulder CO Westview Press 1988

mdashD avid Pion-Berlin University of California Riverside

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570

Source CitationPion-Berlin David Military Dictatorships of Brazil and the Southern Cone World

Scholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Gale Cengage Learning 2011 WorldScholar Latin America amp the Caribbean Web 25 Sep 2012

Document URLhttpworldscholartugalegroupcomtinyurl3RPz2

Gale Document Number GALE|KEWWJL294372570